


Cinnamon

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-15
Updated: 2007-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 16:30:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The words are out of him before he knows he's going to say them, crazy, knee-jerk panic because he keeps seeing a different diner and neon glow in the darkness instead of bright sunlight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> Now rendered AU; written after viewing AHBL 1.
> 
> Big thank yous to [](http://amchara.livejournal.com/profile)[**amchara**](http://amchara.livejournal.com/) and [](http://offbalance.livejournal.com/profile)[**offbalance**](http://offbalance.livejournal.com/) for the last-minute beta reads.

Eight hours after it's over, they stop for gas, the smell of sulfur and decay still clinging to their clothes. Dean's skin itches with it. He figures it'll take a week of showers before the stench finally goes away. Sam's hair is singed, giving him a lopsided look, and normally Dean would find it hilarious, but today he lets it go without a word.

Dean starts pumping gas, dazzled by the sunlight off the rims of the Impala's windows. Sam stands next to the car, shading his eyes with a hand that's still darkened with faint traces of soot. There's a diner the next lot over.

"I'm going for coffee. You want any?"

Cars rush by on the highway, the backdraft kicking up grit and leaves and an empty bag, tossing them around. Dean watches them settle. "Nah, I'm good."

Sam's shadow moves away, and only then does Dean glance up, watching his brother walking towards the grassy divider between the diner's parking lot and the gas station. Diner's ordinary, he's seen thousands just like it, rounded sides and big glass windows. It looks like it's been there since they first built the highway; it's not one of those stupid 1950s revival-themed places.

"Sam, wait."

The words are out of him before he knows he's going to say them, crazy, knee-jerk panic because he keeps seeing a different diner and neon glow in the darkness instead of bright sunlight.

It's worse when Sam turns back and Dean sees his face, sees how much Sam gets it.

Sam doesn't move. He stands on the cracked pavement, waiting with a patience Dean can't remember ever seeing in him before. No, it's miles beyond patience; Sam looks like he'll stand rooted to the spot as long as it takes. Dean has a weird image of them in a time-lapse photography sequence while night falls, the sun rises, it rains, seasons change, the diner is demolished and an overpass gets built over their heads. Like in that book he had when he was a kid, about the North-going and the South-going whatchamacallits, both too stubborn to move and step to one side and so things just got built around them.

Except this isn't stubbornness. And he wants to take the two words back because he can't endure that look on Sam's face.

He turns back to the car, and when he glances up again Sam is just stepping into the diner.

Dean doesn't watch while Sam orders his coffee. He concentrates on the gas meter, on checking the oil in his baby, on picking the debris out of the base of the windshield, his heart racing.

He hears Sam's steps as he returns, smells coffee, hears the crinkle of a brown paper bag.

"Here." Sam perches himself on the hood of the Impala. The chassis dips only a little and holds, used to his weight. "I got you something."

Dean wipes his hands on his jeans and accepts the bag while Sam takes a swallow of coffee. He opens it up and pulls out a triangular-shaped clear plastic container, a plastic fork, and a napkin.

All Dean can do is stare at that slice of pie, transfixed by the crimping of the crust, the way the filling is oozing out, his fingers clenched hard around the plastic, because it's not safe to look anywhere else, or even blink.

It's always been his earliest memory: his mother's hands dusted with flour as she rolled out the dough, Sam in the baby carrier on the kitchen table next to the big bowl of apple slices coated in cinnamon and sugar. He remembers sneaking an apple slice while Mom bent over baby Sammy, who kicked and laughed as she gave him a floury kiss on the nose.

Two decades later, as he'd knelt in the mud of a ghost town trying to hold the life in his brother, Dean had smelled cinnamon, faint but vivid.

Dean crumples the brown paper bag and tosses it in the trash can next to the gas meter, then pops open the plastic lid and digs in. The pie filling's cheap and far too sweet; it's from a can, not fresh apples, and the crust is stale and chewy. There's hardly any taste of cinnamon at all. But he eats it slow, savoring it.

Then he tosses the container into the trash. When he finally looks over at Sam, his gaze is locked diligently on the landscape beyond the highway, on trees and small single-story houses and power lines, sky so blue it hurts to look at it.

This isn't how he knows how to do things, but the rules have changed. The rules are always changing.

He clears his throat. "Sam --"

"Hey." Sam cuts him off. His lips twitch once before his mouth draws down with mock-seriousness, and he holds up his hand, palm flat. "No chick flick moments."

~end


End file.
